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I am not a financial adviser.
But, I am more than 70 years old and I am comfortably retired. At the end of each month, my bills are paid. We have enough money that we can generally do whatever we want.
And we have not yet begun to draw from our retirement accounts. (Except for the Minimum Yearly Requirement.)

We did lose quite a bit during the 2008-2010 financial bust. Even had to file for Bankruptcy.
But we have learned financial skills from our successes and our failures.

My Best 5 Rules for Financial Comfort

Rule 1Work within a Budget

Many opportunities are online and in print to help individuals and families work through the processes of creating a budget.

A coach will be able to look at your financial situation impartially. No emotions or dreams tagged on.
Suggestions
Not your spouse.
Be careful about asking a parent, unless s/he has special qualifications.
Your church may offer limited free counsel.

Rule 3Define your Goals

These need to be in writing and agreed upon by both spouses.
Estimate the cost for each goal.
Create a timeline for achieving each goal.
From those actions, determine how much you will need to save per month to reach your goals.

Examples of Financial Goals
1. Live within a budget
2. Pay off credit card debt
3. Save an emergency fund
4. Save for retirement
5. Live below your means
6. Develop skills to improve your income
7. Save for your children’s education
8. Save a down payment for a home

Rule 4Establish and Apply Self Discipline

Don’t buy any wish items unless you have twice the cost in your savings.
Limit the number of active credit cards you use. (1 is a good number)
Pay the Balance off each month.

Behaviors that often result in a Money Crisis
Impulse buying
Having more than one credit card in your pocket/purse
Over confidence about paying the bill later

Reward yourself when you successfully apply good financial actions as you move toward good financial habits.
Rewards should be scheduled based on your behavior. After you have used a specific good habit pattern for a week, then two weeks, and so on. Spaced repetition of the rewards helps reinforce the behavior.

Rule 5Increase your Income

Many legitimate opportunities are available through online work.
Caution! The ones that are free and as easy as falling off a log – with big $$ promised –
Are likely fake or an attempt to exploit you.

But don’t expect to get paid without time and effort. Nobody give money away – except maybe Ellen.
If you decide to try this route, set aside specific time (and place) that you will work.

Tough

The process of moving from a casual attitude toward your finances is tough. Spend when you have it and go hungry when you don’t is tough to change.

Spending causes a sort of euphoria in the spender. It feels good. Endorphins flood through your brain. That easily prevents you from counting the future costs.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create the endorphin rush when you have resisted an impulse to spend.
That takes time and effort.
But, with a plan and some help (your coach), you can climb out of the debt hole and find financial security. And know that your future is also secure.

Believe me, you’ll find yourself at the age of 70 before you know it.
Seventy feels pretty good when you have the freedom to live and do comfortably.
Don’t depend on Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes or lottery winnings. Take charge of your finances and reward yourself for a job well done.

Go For It!

During the second semester of my senior year of college I was hired to be a teacher.
A few weeks later I was informed that I would be assigned to a small school in South Florida.
One room, multi-grades.

Work

The term ended and I headed South.
My first assignment, however, was a classroom without walls. I had been assigned to a Youth Camp to do whatever the camp director assigned.

The months of June and July I spent in the swamp, building a boardwalk to the tree house, a quarter mile or so away from the main camp. A power augur, which I had never before even seen, creosote poles for supports inserted into each hole drilled through the tangle of roots and water plants.
Cross ties to keep the poles kinda straight up. Two-by-six planks for the walkway.
By the end of July, we had the way completed to access the tree-house – without canoes.

This was not the career I had signed up for.

Have you ever felt that way?

School

The school year began and I was out of the swamp and into the classroom.

My class included students from grade 1 to grade 8.
My training was in secondary education. History and Spanish, to be exact. What was I supposed to do with First Graders?
I felt like I was in a car with no steering wheel, headed swiftly down a steep incline. My father had sometimes used the word ‘careening’ to describe such an event. Disaster seemed imminent.

1.) I needed a Coach, a Mentor.
Fortunately for me, my mother had been a great teacher in the children’s departments of our church. She had also kept children in our home. I drew on every Mom Memory I could muster to plan lessons for these children entrusted to me. Phone calls to Mom and to my superintendent reached through the wires and fed me encouragement and instruction.

3.) The Calendar became my friend. Every book used in every class was divided into learning sections by page numbers and scheduled for the teaching days of the school term.
I knew the facts in the subjects to be taught. But with the schedule in place I could concentrate on the lessons for this day or this week without much thought given to what would be required next week or next month.

4.) I learned to watch the faces of my students as we engaged in class. From their expressions I could tell if they understood. From their remarks I could gauge how fast to proceed and when to review or repeat.
Feedback. You ignore feedback from your students, colleagues, and bosses at the peril of your success.
My students’ parents were a great source of feedback. Students happy to be in school are learning.
My superintendent visited and counseled me. I listened carefully and implemented his suggestions as soon as possible.

5.) Teachers’ Meetings afforded me the opportunity to make friends with others facing the same or similar challenges. Friendships helped to create a feeling of belonging, membership in the business of teaching.
I renewed friendships from my student days. I shared stories, plans, and dreams with family and colleagues.
Multi-State Teacher Conventions opened new doors of opportunity and increased my knowledge and skills.

In the context of my experiences you have read the Five Most Important Ways to Advance Your Career.
Putting these Five to work for yourself and your future I call Careering.

Careering: Intentional, persistent effort put into making your performance the best it can be.
Careening: Traveling down a steep slope with limited steering control. Making your way through your job with little more than day-by-day efforts.

Here they are again:
1.) Get a Mentor or Coach – and use him/her.
Focus on your career or business
Also find a Speaking Coach to improve your communication skills. Others have to understand you and your ideas.

2.) Read about your business and industry. Its history, accomplishments, and needs.
Also read widely so that you’re not a one-topic wonder.
Self-help books. Personal improvement.
This habit helps shape what you think about and how you think about it.
Always be looking for ways to do more and do better.

3.) Use a calendar to schedule your work.
Be sure you understand the schedule your boss has in his/her mind. Share this calendar with your boss and co-workers.
In the context of ‘Schedule’ get your work done, well, even when it requires more time than planned, so that you meet your schedule. Others are depending on your completed work so they can do their work.

4.) Use Feedback, Appraisals, Evaluations
Seek input on your job performance. Study evaluations. Take feedback seriously.
Don’t be offended by any feedback. Take time to think about it and see that it likely has some value to you.

5.) Network with others in the same industry or business.
Develop friendships in other business circles.
Use your sports or team likes to make new friendships.
Attend conventions and gatherings and mingle.

You learn a lot more by listening than by talking.
A talker only hears what he-she already knows.
A listener gains knowledge from the experience and thinking of others.

Focus on your business now. Take these Five Ways To Advance Your Career and apply them to yourself and your job.
I won’t matter if you are an hourly worker, a fast-food maker, a vice-president of industry. These Five, when applied diligently, will take you where you want to go.

Are You Careering? or Careening?

Comment

Leave me a Comment or email me with your experiences in business success.

I had never
experienced an inability to understand a subject in school. I was a
Straight-A student. I read in many different genres and topics and
retained significant knowledge. Making connections between ideas and
knowledge that I picked up from reading, listening, and schooling,
came easy to me.

The college that I
attended fired the Chair of the Modern Languages Department and
discontinued the degree offered in Spanish. That was my major. I
planned to be a teacher of Spanish at the high school level.

Casting about for an
anchor to hold onto, I chose Nursing. I could become a CRNA. I
switched my major.

Second semester in
the new program I was required to take a class in chemistry.

I applied the
patterns and skills that had always enabled me to get good grades.

Nothing stuck.
Nothing connected to what I already knew. I was failing.

The Chair of the
Nursing Department called me to her office.

“Your chemistry
professor says you are failing his class.”

Embarrassed, I
nodded.

“Our program has a
100% pass rate on the N-CLEX test. You are jeopardizing that record.
Please change your major to something other than Nursing.”

I was mortified. I
walked out of the building feeling like I had a sign on my back and
forhead that said, “Kick me! I’m a loser!”

Several years later
I was teaching English and History at a high school in California.
Two weeks before the beginning of the Fall term, the principal called
me in and said, “Our Chemistry teacher just resigned. You are the
only faculty member with that period open. You will be teaching
General Chemistry this semester. ” It was not a question. And he
handed me the textbook.

I worked those two
weeks to get two weeks ahead of the students. I did. And I stayed
ahead of them. I began to understand the subject.

When I was 8 years
old my parents took me to live with my Aunt Clara and Uncle Ben on
the farm.

It was there that I
had my first encounter with the violin. On Friday evening, after
chores were done, we took our weekly baths, and then Uncle Ben would
take his fiddle from its home on top of the upright piano and play.

I was in love. Oh,
how I wanted to hold that instrument and make it sing.

But it was forbidden
fruit. Only Uncle Ben was permitted to touch.

Up to this time, the
musical part of my personal development had experienced only my
mother singing. I had probably heard other music during my 8 years
of life. But nothing struck into my developing brain to cause me to
thrill – until the violin.

I could whistle, and
I am sure I could carry a tune. My sister and I sang a duet for a
closing school program, and no one ran screaming for the door with
their hands over their ears.

Personal
Development: Working on the parts of my self that enable me to
participate well in the human experience.

Even the restriction
to not touch the violin was part of my Personal Development. It
involved a pattern of obedience and respecting the property of
others.

Personal Development
engages you in many parts of your life. Some examples are –

Parents control the
beginning stages of Personal Development, as infants and children are
subjected to the parents’ preferences and choices. Touch, taste,
attitude toward ‘new’, sounds, music, activity, style, dress.

Parents pass on
their own attitudes toward Knowledge and Acceptance, which controls
the child’s Development in these stages. This embeds a pattern that
will likely be followed by the child as the child becomes an adult.

The Preferences
stage begins in the infant/child and continues into adult-middle-age.

The Performance
stages of Personal Development have the best outcomes when
Care-takers begin the work during the childhood years.

Before we reach our
adult lives most of the foundations for Personal Development are
already in place.

Parents control
early exposure to the ingredients of Personal Development.

Parents provide a
pattern for dealing with new experiences.

The child begins to
accept or reject the parent’s patterns for dealing with ‘new’.

Adults determine
their own response and actions toward development. It is often more
difficult to acquire the Performance Stage when beginning a new skill
as an adult.

HINT: Many old people tend to be stuck in their ways, with little acceptance of change. Don’t be an old person.

My daughter, at a
young age, decided she did not like peas and beans. Unfortunately, a
vegetarian diet makes liberal use of those dietary items.

She had the balanced
diet of baby food items. Later, we placed some beans or peas on her
plate, expecting her to develop an acceptance of them over time.

She would carefully
work her way around the plate, avoiding the detested items.

We would make her
sit at the table until she cleaned her plate.

She would sit there
for hours, with her arms folded and her bottom lip pouting.

To this day she does
not like them. Not everything works out the way the parenting books
say it should. And some children have a clear understanding of their
preferences early in life.

Adults need to have
an openness to change in order to take themselves through all four
stages listed above.

Personal Development
needs to take into account our Personality Type.

Depending on which
school of thought you choose, there are 4 basic personality types, or
there are 12, or there are 16, or even more.

Human Personality
has been studied quite thoroughly. Take an on-line test if you are
unsure of your label.

Personality tests
will provide you with some knowledge to help you in your interactions
with life. But nothing in the results should make you give up with a
dismissive “Oh, Well! That’s how I am.” Certain tendencies are
identified, but you can change, you can learn how to adapt, you can
move toward the center.

Your Personality
(Temperament Type) will reveal strengths and weaknesses that you may
have. Use the strengths to move the weaknesses to have lesser control
over your choices.

Focus on cultivating
habits/patterns that are “Good-for-me” and
“Good-for-those-important-to-me”, in work and recreation, – in
other words – in your Personal Development.

Share

I was in my 30s
before I acquired a violin of my own. I can’t play any recognizable
melody on it. Never had the resources to take lessons.

But my grandson is
taking lessons and plays for me.

I hope this article
will encourage you to work on your self – and your children and
grandchildren.

What have you done
with/for your children to promote their personal development? With
what results?

We give up on the dream because we have tried and failed so many times – to continue the charade seems pointless.

Courage

But take courage, there is still hope.

Let’s take a close look at Habits, because…

That’s where success or failure comes from.

Habits come from repeated behaviors. Period.

The key to success in creating a habit is Persistence.

Anatomy of a Habit

A habit is the result of you doing, saying, thinking – something – over and over.

I get up in the morning, get dressed, make a hot drink, and sit on the couch in the living room. My digital reader is there where I left it the previous evening. I flip it open and start my Bible app. It opens to the place I bookmarked the previous day. I read for up to 30 minutes, or until I encounter a passage that asks for reflection.

My Habit Experience

That’s automatic for me now, after more than a year of repeating the behavior.

But at first it was a challenge. I wanted to do other things, maybe turn on the TV, maybe read something other than the Bible.

I struggled with creating the habit.

I believe that God wants to spend time with me. When I crowd Him out, He is disappointed.

While I was forming the habit I had to remind myself – often – that God was waiting for me to spend time with Him.

I don’t know how many times I said, “This is important! I won’t disappoint God!”

Repeated and repeated, until it is now a habit.

Whether habits begin in behavior or in thoughts – I’m not sure it matters.

Purposeful habits begin in the thoughts – you make a decision. It’s the will taking action. Making a choice.

Act on that choice repeatedly and you have a habit.

Actually, habits are responsible for just about everything we do
during a normal day.

Changing a habit is the trick.

Take some quiet time and list your routine actions – your daily
patterns. With that done, it is likely to be easy to identify some
time – daily time – in which you could replace an old habit with
the new one of God Time.

Bible reading on the couch.

Looking for evidence of God’s love in Nature.

Journaling to record your Spiritual Journey. Writing about it
helps to establish some accountability in the Divine Relationship.